Updated 9:20 pm, Friday, March 22, 2013

A criminal investigation is under way and the bank filed a fraud suit against Schreiner, the great-grandson of legendary local frontiersman Charles A. Schreiner.

Schreiner, 54, has countersued. The bank says he duped its employees into taking the checks last year by falsely claiming to own the three businesses to which they were made payable.

“He obtained assumed name certificates in which he claimed that he was the sole owner of those entities,” said Don Krause, attorney for the bank, which paid out funds before being alerted to problems with the checks.

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The bank reimbursed the originating banks, the suit says, and recovered $58,790 that was “trapped in the bank accounts of defendant's co-conspirators.”

Krause didn't accuse Schreiner — whom he deposed for the suit this week — of actually stealing the checks, and wouldn't name his alleged co-conspirators.

“He claims that he was totally duped by them, and maybe so,” Krause said.

The suit quotes U.S. postal inspectors as saying the checks had been stolen from mail in transit, but the agency couldn't confirm that when asked this week.

In Schreiner's counter-claim, his lawyer, John Dwyer, blamed the bank for its losses, accusing it of negligence, making misrepresentations to Schreiner and violating deceptive trade practices law by honoring the checks.

Dwyer wouldn't discuss how Schreiner obtained the checks, or why he asserted ownership of the businesses, but said: “He was targeted by some scammers.”

He said Schreiner, a resident of the famed YO Ranch in Mountain Home, filed a complaint about the check incident with the Sheriff's Office here last year.

Because the case involved entities in other states, Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said he referred it to the Texas attorney general's office, which declined comment.

“It's all still under investigation, so I can't say much,” Hierholzer said.

The bank's suit seeks recovery from Schreiner of $130,963, the amount it's still out over the check incident, plus exemplary damages.

The dispute marks the second recent civil legal entanglement for Gus Schreiner. He and brother Walter Schreiner were sued last month by fellow voting partners in the YO Ranch, their brother Charles Schreiner IV and sister-in-law Christine Schreiner.

Calling the ranch's management system unworkable, the plaintiffs want the court to dissolve the oral family partnership and divide the property four ways.

In court filings last week, Gus Schreiner backed the breakup of the ranch, which now is run by a court-appointed trustee, but he also filed a counter claim against Charles Schreiner IV, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, wrongful conversion of ranch property and fraudulent taking of the YO Ranch trademark.